How our government is supposed to work is well-documented in the Constitution and in countless laws, judicial rulings, and civil traditions handed down to us since the United States was founded. Now while theory is fine, a more critical need of citizens is to know how our government actually works in the real world. To discover that, officials, reporters, and citizens simply must have free access to documents, media, and internal records of their government. This transparency or openness is key to running any free republic thatâ€™s truly accountable and responsive to the citizens who rule that republic. The...

Faced with a public records request from Mississippi Today for the state's contract with EdBuild, a legislative committee voted Tuesday to adopt a new policy mandating that all contracts it approves be confidential. The House Management Committee, which approves contracts entered into by the House of Representatives, voted 7-3 to pass the policy, which states "All contracts entered into by the House Management Committee shall be confidential and shall not be released to any person or entity, except as specifically directed by the House Management Committee only when the committee deems necessary for the execution of the contract." The action...

A federal judge said Monday that emails relating to Hillary Clinton's time as secretary of state that were found during an FBI investigation of former Rep. Anthony Weiner could be subject to public disclosure as part of a pending lawsuit. U.S. District Judge James Boasberg, presiding over a hearing one day before the presidential election between Clinton and Republican Donald Trump, scheduled a Nov. 29 hearing to discuss whether the FBI had provided the records to the State Department. FBI Director James Comey shook the presidential race on Oct. 28 when he informed Congress that agents had recovered the emails,...

Judicial Watch today released 296 pages of State Department records. They include 44 email exchanges that were not previously turned over to the State Department, notwithstanding Hillary Clinton’s claim that as far as she knew, all of her government emails were turned over. The emails, in the words of Judicial Watch president Tom Fitton, “show the Clinton Foundation, Clinton donors, and operatives worked with Hillary Clinton [while she was Secretary of State] in potential violation of the law.” No wonder Clinton and Huma Abedin hid emails from the American people, the courts, and Congress. In one exchange, from April 2009,...

On document 3 of 4, take a look at this: Pg. 68: Medical diagram of the entry and exit wound of the gunshot Pg. 135: "I then spoke with an unidentified male who stated the following: That the Whitewater case, which was being investigated in Washington and an individual involved in this, identified as Vince Foster, who had reportedly committed suicide was not, in fact, a suicide but a murder victim. He indicated that there was a van involved, no color given, with the first three numbers of the tag being '227'".https://vault.fbi.gov/vincent-foster/vincent-foster-part-01-of-04/view

Only days before the presidential election, the FBI released a 17-year-old archive of documents from a long-closed investigation into Bill Clinton's presidential pardon of a fugitive financier, prompting questions from Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign about its timing. The release comes amid the bureau's controversially timed review of emails from a Hillary Clinton aide. The 129 pages of heavily censored material were published Monday on the FBI's Freedom of Information Act webpage and noted by one of the bureau's Twitter accounts Tuesday. Earlier in October, the FBI unit published historical files as far back as 1966 about Donald Trump's father, Fred...

The clerk of Lincoln Township, Michigan — a small township near the tip of the Thumb — publicly criticized a citizen for filing a Freedom of Information Act request. The Huron Daily Tribune reports: Clerk Irvin Kanaski also called upon township residents at Monday night’s meeting to chide Arlene Schipinski for seeking the information surrounding a $1,100 private donation to the township’s legal fund. Kanaski said Schipinski’s requests cost the township $2,300 to $2,500 in legal fees, not counting the time he and Treasurer Patricia Weber put into handling the request. “This cost is more than double that of the...

WASHINGTON, D.C. â€” A backup data device containing Hillary Clintonâ€™s emails exists in the FBIâ€™s possession. The FBI is now challenged to produce the long forgotten device. The FBI received a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request â€śVIA CERTIFIED MAILâ€ť Wednesday from Judicial Watch. The existence of this device is generating behind-the-scenes frenzy in the Beltway as the FBI continues to get hammered over its investigation of the Clinton email scandal. FBI director James Comey conducted an investigation based on small partial email discoveries here and there. The fact that the FBI did not look at all of her...

Judicial Watch today released received responses under oath from former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton concerning her email practices. Judicial Watch submitted twenty-five questions on August 30 to Clinton as ordered by U.S. District Court Judge Emmet G. Sullivan. The new Clinton responses in the Judicial Watch Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit before Judge Sullivan was first filed in September 2013 seeking records about the controversial employment status of Huma Abedin, former deputy chief of staff to Clinton. The lawsuit was reopened because of revelations about the clintonemail.com system (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of State (No. 1:13-cv-01363)). Judicial...

Although Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton may mot be happy with WikiLeaks’ release of emails coming from her and her staff, that doesn’t mean that she isn’t above doing the same thing herself. But unlike Julian Assange‘s group, she just doesn’t want her name associated with it. Newly-released Clinton emails confirm that the former secretary of state approved a plan in early 2015, shortly after her own email scandal broke, to fight fire with fire by publishing Republican lawmakers’ rejections of Freedom of Information Act [FOIA] requests for their own private emails. Although State Department emails are subject to FOIA...

Judicial Watch Targeted by Obama Administration Federal Contractor Tells Local Official to Keep Syria Refugee Plans Secret Judicial Watch Targeted by Obama Administration Three years ago we reported on videos produced by the Government Services Administration (GSA) that show senior GSA officials and staff participating in costumed playacting and parodies. Here’s a flavor: The Rocky Jog – With the Rocky movie theme blaring in the background, senior GSA officials lead employees on an extended jog through the corridors of the GSA’s New York office and the streets of Manhattan. The jog is initiated by Ben Kochanski, deputy regional commissioner,...

According to a report by the inspector general of the General Services Administration, Obama administration political operatives continuously slow walked open records requests and punished the legal group Judicial Watch for their activism. Judicial Watch has several FOIA lawsuits against the administration and in every case, the administration sought to delay complying with the requests, even going so far as to overcharge the group for fees related to the searches.

‘[O]ne email exchange occurring shortly before Secretary Clinton joined the Department [of State] that demonstrated a reluctance to communicate the requirement [of printing and filing email records] to incoming staff.’ – Office of Inspector General Report (Washington DC)—Judicial Watch announced today that it has filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit to obtain records regarding an email exchange that took place before former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton took office citing a “reluctance to communicate the requirement [of printing and filing email records] to incoming staff.” The lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the District...

The incomplete records of the Hillary Clinton email investigation released by the FBI raise questions about the conduct not only of Clinton but of her top aides and the staffers working under their direction. Perhaps the most serious is whether the Clinton team destroyed evidence which they were under legal order to save and produce to congressional investigators. Out of a massive investigation, the FBI has released just two documents: a heavily-redacted version of its summary report and a writeup — the so-called 302 — from agents' July 2 interview with Clinton. The rest, including reports from interviews with other...

After the Flint water crisis came to light, multiple state employees in the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality were reassigned out of the department, which oversees water quality. We were interested in finding out more: Where were these employees reassigned and were they being punished for malpractice? So on March 30, the Mackinac Center filed a Freedom of Information Act request with the department to find out. And then we waited. And then we waited some more. And then we waited more still. People and the press have a right to public information, even if it’s inconvenient to a government...

Perhaps the most interesting development in this most interesting of presidential election seasons has been the convergence of the power of the Freedom of Information Act with the power of the Internet. The impact of these conjoined forces may well determine the political fate of one of our presidential candidates. The Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) was signed into law, fittingly, on July 4, 1966. This piece of legislation, which has been amended and strengthened numerous times since its inception, is a testament to that unique "American exceptionalism" of which Barack Obama was so famously dismissive at a NATO summit...

Entire Disc of Records Uncovered by FBI Were Not Provided to State by Clinton in December 2014 (Washington DC) – Judicial Watch today announced that the State Department has agreed to produce to Judicial Watch all emails sent or received by former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton that were uncovered by the FBI in its investigation of Clinton and her use of the clintonemail.com system: [T]he FBI completed its transmission to the State Department of documents recovered by the FBI in the course of its investigation in connection with former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s use of a personal e-mail...

So much for the public’s (free) right to know about government decisions and actions—the Department of Justice (DOJ) has slapped Judicial Watch with a startling $50,000 bill to search for public records the agency claims don’t exist. That’s nearly the median annual income in the U.S., which is $53,000 according to census figures. Keep in mind that Judicial Watch is a nonprofit educational foundation dedicated to government transparency and accountability.

Washington (CNN)Newly released emails from Hillary Clinton's tenure as secretary of state raise questions about the nature of the department's relationship with the Clinton Foundation. Judicial Watch, a conservative watchdog group, released 296 pages of emails from the Democratic presidential nominee, including 44 that Judicial Watch says were not previously handed over to the State Department by Clinton. The emails, many of which are heavily redacted, raise questions about the Clinton Foundation's influence on the State Department and its relations during her tenure. In one instance, top Clinton Foundation official Doug Band lobbied Clinton aides for a job for someone...

A conservative legal group is accusing state Democratic officials of conspiring to flout public records laws in order to keep secret details of a campaign to bring racketeering charges against climate policy dissenters. Democratic attorneys general led by New York’s Eric Schneiderman are seeking to block efforts to obtain documents about their efforts by invoking an overbroad claim to secrecy in ongoing legal proceedings, according to the Energy and Environment (E&E) Legal Institute. “These activist AGs are trying to write themselves out from freedom of information laws their legislatures have written them into,” E&E senior legal fellow Chris Horner said...

The recent release of House Benghazi Committee interview transcripts includes one from a now-retired State Department official who appears to have given inconsistent statements about his knowledge of Hillary Clinton’s email practices. During an interview with the committee last year, John Bentel, the former director of the Executive Secretariat’s information resource management division, which manages records and communications for State Department’s leadership, claimed he had no knowledge of Clinton’s use of personal email account or private server. But emails recently released by Judicial Watch — as well as findings laid out in a recent State Department inspector general’s report —...

une 30, 2016 Today, as we approach the 50th anniversary of the Freedom of Information Act, President Obama has signed into law the FOIA Improvement Act of 2016. In our democracy, the FOIA serves as a vital tool to keep citizens informed about the operations of their government. Since its enactment in 1966, the FOIA has been amended on a number of occasions to adapt to the times and changing priorities. The FOIA Improvement Act of 2016 contains several substantive and procedural amendments to the FOIA, as well as new reporting requirements for agencies. In order to assist agencies in...

A little more than a year ago, Quartz’s David Yanofsky did what many data reporters do every day: He submitted a Freedom of Information Act request for a set of statistics from a government agency. Yanofsky wanted immigration statistics about who enters the country from the International Trade Administration, the only government agency that compiles comprehensive records of this kind. The ITA got back to him and said that he was welcome to the data set — all he had to do was cut a check for $173,775. After weeks of paperwork and haggling with the agency, Yanofsky is now...

The latest batch of emails from Hillary Clinton's term as Secretary of State exposes two new troubling developments in the long-running scandal. First, it turns out that Clinton managed to avoid turning over one key email, despite her repeated promises that she gave the State Department every single work-related email from her private email server. As the Associated Press reported, in the missing email, Clinton admits that her private setup was a problem. Excerpt, more at: http://www.investors.com/politics/commentary/clinton-e-mail-scandal-state-dept-disabled-its-own-security-systems-to-accommodate-hillary/

(Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch today released the deposition transcript of Ambassador Stephen D. Mull, executive secretary of the State Department from June 2010 to October 2012, who suggested that former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton be issued a State Department BlackBerry, which would protect her identity and would also be subject to FOIA requests. The Mull transcript is available here. Amb. Mull now serves as the State Department’s lead coordinator for Iran nuclear implementation. Amb. Mull’s testimony and other discovery arises in a Judicial Watch Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit that seeks records about the controversial employment status...

The FBI has asked a federal judge for permission to file a second secret declaration detailing its probe into Hillary Clinton’s private email server. In the request, which came as part of a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit, the Justice Department offered for the FBI to provide “additional details” about how it “conducted a reasonable search for records” as part of the open records case and “determined that there were no records responsive.”

The State Department said it would take 75 years for the release of emails from top aides to Hillary Clinton while she was serving as secretary of State. Lawyers said it would take that long to compile the 450,000 pages of records from former Clinton aides Cheryl Mills, Jacob Sullivan and Patrick Kennedy, according to a court filing from last week, which was first reported by CNN . "Given the Department's current [Freedom of Information Act] (FOIA) workload and the complexity of these documents, it can process about 500 pages a month, meaning it would take approximately 16-and-2/3 years to...

The state agency that has been criticized the most for mistakes and alleged deception in the Flint water crisis says it will take four months before it releases public records requested under Michigan’s Freedom of Information Act. Generally, government agencies have no more than 15 days to respond to a FOIA request and release the relevant information. They may also require a reasonable fee to cover the cost of retrieving data and processing the request. Michigan’s Department of Environmental Quality received a FOIA request from Michigan Capitol Confidential on March 30, took the maximum extension, requested a deposit, and cashed...

A former State Department IT expert has refused to answer questions about his work on Hillary Clinton’s private email server, keeping its operations shrouded in mystery. Bryan Pagliano’s laywers have said that he would remain silent during a deposition with the conservative watchdog Judicial Watch, originally scheduled for Monday but now delayed until further notice. His decision increases the odds that Clinton herself will be forced to testify in the case. And, because of quirks of the legal system, his decision to stay quiet could be seen as an implicit confirmation that he or the State Department had done something...

Full title: Judicial Watch: Justice Department Documents Reveal Widespread Use of Fast and Furious Weapons by Major Mexican Drug Cartels – Linked to at least 69 Killings From December 2012 to March 2016, 94 Fast and Furious weapons were seized; Fast and Furious weapon found in “Chapo” Guzman hideout(Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch announced today released Justice Department documents showing that weapons sent from the U.S. into Mexico as part of the Obama administration’s Operation Fast and Furious gunrunning program have been widely used by major Mexican drug cartels. According to the new records, over the past three years, a...

Submits Proposed Witness List, Discovery Plan to Federal Court (Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch announced today that it has filed a proposed order for discovery with a federal court that seeks the testimony of Hillary Clinton about her use of non-state.gov email account(s) for official State Department business. Judicial Watch’s discovery plan also seeks the testimony of Cheryl Mills, Clinton’s former chief of staff; and Jacob “Jake” Sullivan, former senior advisor and deputy chief of staff, as well as other current and former State Department officials. Judicial Watch proposes the testimony take place over 12 weeks. Today’s filing comes in...

State Department Documents Reveal Clinton Political Operative Pushed the Hiring of Bryan Pagliano Whitewater: Twelve Versions of Hillary Clinton Draft Indictment, 451 Pages, Withheld By National Archives Hillary Clinton Knew Almost Immediately About Security Risk of Using Private Blackberry State Department Documents Reveal Clinton Political Operative Pushed the Hiring of Bryan Pagliano This week we received Department of State emails showing that, during Hillary Clinton’s tenure as secretary of state, Laura Pena, a top aide to Clinton, helped push through the political appointment of Bryan Pagliano, a former Hillary for President IT director, to a political position in the...

The State Department has been unable to locate any emails that were sent to or from Hillary Clinton's former IT aide at the department, according a Monday court filing. The statement was made by lawyers responding to a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed by the Republican National Committee. The party sued for applicable records after the department failed to respond to a FOIA request. Former IT aide Bryan Pagliano served at the department for nearly the entirety of Clinton's tenure from 2009-13. He was responsible for establishing a private server in the basement of Clinton's home, which was allegedly...

Third rebuke of administration’s transparency this yearThe White House showed “bad faith” in how it handled an open-records request for global warming data, a federal court ruled Monday, issuing yet another stinging rebuke to the administration for showing a lack of transparency. For President Obama, who vowed to run the most transparent government in U.S. history, Judge Amit P. Mehta’s ruling granting legal “discovery” in an open-records case — the third time this year a judge has ordered discovery — is an embarrassing black eye. In this most recent case, the Competitive Enterprise Institute was trying to force the White...

The State Department on Tuesday notified Vice News that it will not release documents responsive to the news outlet’s FOIA requests related to the security of Hillary Clinton’s e-mail server until after the November election. According to Vice News reporter Jason Koebler, soon after news broke of Clinton’s use of a private e-mail for State Department business, he filed a FOIA request with the State Department seeking “communications, presentations, and procedures created by the State Department to secure Hillary Clinton’s email from electronic threats.” In his new report released on Thursday, Koebler describes how despite several promises from the State...

Judicial Watch & Allied Educational Foundation to Supreme Court: Protect the Laws that Keep Public Officials Honest Defending the First Amendment against the Obama IRS Only 3 U.S. Airports Require Employee Security Checks JW Gets Props in The Wall Street JournalJudicial Watch & Allied Educational Foundation to Supreme Court: Protect the Laws that Keep Public Officials Honest With a notorious Democrat in the White House, it bears repeating that there are corrupt politicians in both the Republican and Democrat parties. The “corruption caucus” in the political world is both bipartisan and growing. True to our non-partisan educational mission, we...

Then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was telling two different stories on the reason for the attacks on the U.S. diplomatic facilities in Benghazi, Libya less than 24 hours after they occurred, according to newly released State Department documents. The documents, obtained by the conservative watchdog group Judicial Watch under a Freedom of Information Act court ruling, contain transcripts of telephone calls between Clinton and world leaders, including then Egyptian Prime Minister Hisham Kandil. According to the transcript, the call with Kandil was made on the morning of September 12, 2012, the day after the attacks that killed four Americans, including...

The Detroit News reported that the whistleblower who brought the Flint water crisis to light had earlier sent an email claiming that the city's response to the lead contamination of residents "borders on criminal neglect." The June 25, 2015, email from U.S. EPA employee Miguel Del Toral email read in part: "They have had no corrosion control treatment in place for over a year now and they have lead service lines. It’s just basic chemistry on lead solubility. You will have high lead leaching into the water where you are doing nothing to mitigate that.” “The only reason we don’t...

As U.S. officials dealt with the fallout of the government’s once-secret “Cuban Twitter” program, they had one thing on their side: notorious delays in the federal Freedom of Information Act. The government didn’t have copies of the documents, which formed the basis of an Associated Press investigation detailing a program on which taxpayers spent millions. But officials were worried that asking the contractor to hand over copies would risk making the details even more public. […] USAID’s calculus — realizing that the nation’s public-records law can be so slow as to border on unusable — comes amid new data showing...

Hillary Clinton is good at imagining partisan plots, and to listen to her team, no less than several inspectors general, the intelligence community, and the entire Republican ecosphere are colluding to turn her home-brew email system into a fake scandal. To this conspiracy, she must now add the federal judiciary...

A second federal judge has granted discovery to a watchdog group seeking records from Hillary Clinton’s State Department, an unusual move that gives new credibility to claims that State officials intentionally evaded public records laws. U.S. District Court Judge Royce Lamberth issued the ruling on Tuesday in response to a 2014 lawsuit by the conservative watchdog group Judicial Watch, which has been suing the State Department for documents related to the Benghazi attack. Judge Lamberth cited “evidence of government wrong-doing” while issuing the decision. “[W]here there is evidence of government wrong-doing and bad faith, as here, limited discovery is appropriate,...

Cites ‘Privacy’ and ‘Scintilla’ of Public Interest in Material about Potential Clinton Crimes Draft Indictment Bears on ‘Mrs. Clinton’s honesty, credibility, and trustworthiness … for the position she currently seeks.’ (Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch announced today that it is asking a federal court to order the National Archives and Records Administration to release draft criminal indictments of Hillary Clinton. In its motion for summary judgment, the National Archives claimed that “the drafts involve a significant [Clinton] privacy interest that is not outweighed by any public interest….” In its March 11 opposition brief, Judicial Watch counters that allegedly “making false...

The FBI submitted a classified declaration to a federal court judge late Friday explaining details about the bureau's "pending investigation" into the use of a private email server by Democratic presidential frontrunner Hillary Clinton. The declaration addresses why the FBI can't publicly release any records about its probe in response to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit filed by VICE News.

(Washington, DC) - Judicial Watch announced today that on June 15, 2015, it filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to obtain records of all Secret Service expenses incurred to provide "security and or/other services" to former President Bill Clinton during his trips to the Caribbean island of convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of Homeland Security (No. 1:15-cv-00915)).

Within hours of the news breaking that Hillary Clinton exclusively used a private e-mail account while she was secretary of state, employees across the federal government fired up their computers to share their disbelief. “How is this even possible?” Michael McDonald, general counsel at the National Endowment for the Humanities, asked his deputy Lisette Voyatzis in an e-mail sent March 3, 2015. “They [the State Department] are as ass-backwards as NEH when it comes to records management. That’s comforting,” she replied. Charles Beamon, the top ethics official at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, sent Clinton’s story staff-wide as a cautionary...

The Michigan Freedom of Information Act provides a compelling declaration in favor of government transparency: “It is the public policy of this state that all persons … are entitled to full and complete information regarding the affairs of government and the official acts of those who represent them as public officials and public employees, consistent with this act. The people shall be informed so that they may fully participate in the democratic process.” CapCon Commentary CapCon Commentary The Flint water crisis has illuminated an important exemption found in FOIA; the law exempts the governor and lieutenant governor and their offices...

Full title: Judicial Watch Submits Proposed Witness List, Discovery Plan to Federal Court in Clinton Email Matter (Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch today filed a plan for “ narrowly tailored discovery” into former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s email matter with a federal court. Judicial Watch’s discovery plan seeks the testimony of eight current and former State Department officials, including top State Department official Patrick Kennedy, former State IT employee Bryan Pagliano, and Clinton’s two top aides at the State Department: Cheryl Mills and Huma Abedin. Judicial Watch’s plan says that “based on information learned during discovery, the deposition of...